Brontës (104 page)

In creating her plain and unassuming heroine, Anne was breaking new ground, but in giving her to the curate, Mr Weston, a man of her own age and station in life, she was more realistic than her sister, who allowed Jane Eyre to win her wealthy employer who was twice her age.

As Charlotte had made clear from the start, the three novels were intended to be published either together, in the three-volume set which was then the standard method of marketing fiction, or as individual volumes. The brown paper parcel containing the novels began ‘plodding its weary round in London'
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at the beginning of July 1846, but it was to be a full year before a publisher expressed any interest. The difficulty of getting published for the first time was compounded by the fact that the Brontës expected to be paid for their work. Emily had also unwittingly contributed to their problems by producing a manuscript which was far too long for either of the proposed formats.
Wuthering Heights
on its own filled two volumes, making a three-volume set impractical unless one of the other two novels was dropped. Though it is possible she may have originally intended to write
Wuthering Heights
in one volume,
⁸⁸
the complex structure and neat resolution of the plot suggest that she simply miscalculated the conversion of manuscript pages to print, as had happened with
Poems
. For the moment, however, the sisters could derive satisfaction from the fact that
they had each completed a novel, as they waited with anxious anticipation to discover how they were received.

The possibility of earning a living from writing had become more important over the last few months as Patrick's health declined and it became increasingly obvious that Branwell was unlikely ever to be in a position where he could keep his sisters. Patrick was now almost totally blind. Though he could still deliver sermons which lasted exactly an hour, he had to be led to the pulpit and had been compelled to delegate virtually all his pastoral duties to his curate.
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Fortunately, in Arthur Bell Nicholls he had a willing and able assistant on whom he could rely completely. His frequent visits to the parsonage to consult with his rector did not go unnoticed in the village however, and Charlotte was indignant to find that she had to defend herself to Ellen Nussey.

Who gravely asked you ‘whether Miss Brontë was not going to be married to her papa's Curate?'

I scarcely need say that never was rumour more unfounded – it puzzles me to think how it could possibly have originated – A cold, far-away sort of civility are the only terms on which I have ever been with Mr Nicholls – I could by no means think of mentioning such a rumour to him even as a joke – it would make me the laughing-stock of himself and his fellow-curates for half a year to come – They regard me as an old maid, and I regard them, one and all, as highly uninteresting, narrow and unattractive specimens of the ‘coarser sex'.

In the same letter, Charlotte was called upon to advise her friend on whether she should leave home to earn her bread by ‘Governess drudgery' or stay there to look after her aged mother, thereby ‘neglecting for the present every prospect of independency for yourself and putting up with daily inconvenience – sometimes even with privations'. In an interesting commentary on her own situation, Charlotte wrote:

The right path is that which necessitates the greatest sacrifice of self-interest – which implies the greatest good to others – and this path steadily followed will lead
I believe
in time to prosperity and to happiness though it may seem at the outset to tend quite in a contrary direction –

Your Mother is both old and infirm, old and infirm people have few sources of happiness – fewer almost than the comparatively young and healthy can conceive – to deprive them of one of these is cruel – If your Mother is more
composed when you are with her – stay with her – If she would be unhappy in case you left her – stay with her – It will not apparently, as far [as] shortsighted humanity can see – be for your advantage to remain at Brookroyd – nor will you be praised and admired for remaining at home to comfort your Mother – Yet probably your own Conscience will approve you and if it does – stay with her.

I recommend you to do – what I am trying to do myself–
⁹⁰

Though this advice was somewhat disingenuous, in that the problems of living at home could never exceed the privations of being a governess for Charlotte, there is no doubt that she was offering a candid opinion and that she genuinely believed that she was making a sacrifice in staying at Haworth. Ever an active man, both physically and mentally, Patrick's increasing disablement must have made him not only depressed but also difficult and demanding. When he could no longer read or write for himself, nor even walk down the street to his church without assistance, it is not surprising that he needed more of his daughters' time. His sense of helplessness could only have been compounded by his physical inability to exert any sort of control over Branwell, whose complete moral and mental breakdown must have caused his father untold anguish. There was frustration, too, that he could not play his full part in the parish. At the beginning of the year there had been a subscription fund to organize in favour of the Quarter of a Million League Fund and a new headmaster to appoint to Haworth Free Grammar School. The long-awaited new peal of bells for the church had arrived and, on 10 March, their installation was celebrated with a change ringing competition and a dinner at the Black Bull in the evening.
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On Whit Monday Patrick had delivered his annual sermon to the Sunday school teachers and children, but had been obliged to forgo the customary processional walk through the village; in the afternoon his place was taken by the Reverend James Cheadle, vicar of Bingley, who preached to 230 members of the Oddfellows in Haworth Church. Again, a couple of weeks later, he was obliged to miss the ceremonial laying of the foundation stone for a new National School at Oxenhope, though this was a project that had been very dear to his heart.
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His pastoral duties were also severely curtailed at just the time when they were most needed: though not as bad as during the terrible years early in the decade, the poor state of trade and the consequent decline in wages was a source of misery and privation in the township. Many of his parishioners were unable to pay their rates and, when summoned before the
Keighley magistrates, could only plead absolute poverty. One woman had only 4s. 6d. – only marginally more than the price of the sisters' volume of
Poems
– on which to support herself, her husband and two children each week.
⁹³

On a more positive note, however, Patrick was able to join in the celebrations at the beginning of Haworth Rush-Bearing week. His old Evangelical friend, the Reverend Thomas Crowther, returned to Haworth to give the annual Sunday school sermons on 19 July, raising over twenty-five pounds through the collections, and he stayed overnight in order to attend an oratorio in the church the following day. The oratorio was held for the benefit of Thomas Parker, the celebrated Haworth tenor, who sang with Mrs Sunderland from the Halifax concerts and a great variety of instrumental and choral performers. It was a sad commentary on the bigotry now so rampant in Haworth that the concert was boycotted by all the Puseyite clergy of the district – including, apparently, Patrick's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls – because Parker was a Baptist. For this reason alone it was gratifying that the church was ‘crowded to suffocation' and Patrick, ‘the venerable incumbent … who is now totally blind', made a point of sitting prominently in the west gallery with his like-minded clerical friends, Thomas Crowther and Thomas Brooksbank Charnock, and the head of his church trustees, Joseph Greenwood, J.P.
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Though not mentioned in the newspaper reports of the occasion it seems likely that Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne were also present for they would not have missed an oratorio on their own doorstep. On the Tuesday, 21 July, Patrick had also the gratification of hearing the half-yearly public examination of scholars in the National School at Haworth which furnished proof of the flourishing state of the school he had established. A week later, however, he was a prominent absentee from the Sunday school anniversary celebrations at Newsholme, a tiny hamlet near Oakworth, where the neighbouring clergy, including Arthur Bell Nicholls, Mr Grant of Oxenhope, the vicar of Keighley and his curate, Mr Egglestone, turned out in force.
⁹⁵

Compelled to absent himself from so many of the activities in the chapelry, these were indeed ‘mournful days – when Papa's vision was wholly obscured – when he could do nothing for himself and sat all day-long in darkness and inertion'. Patrick's blindness was now so far advanced that an operation had become a necessity and, with this in mind, Charlotte and Emily ‘made a pilgrimage' to Manchester at the beginning of August to find a suitable surgeon.
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The operation was too delicate to be entrusted to a
general surgeon like William Carr, whom Charlotte had consulted in Gomersal earlier in the year, or one of Patrick's old physician friends in Bradford or Leeds. Manchester had not only a pioneering and nationally famous infirmary, but also flourishing medical schools and a specialist eye hospital. Charlotte and Emily seem to have made their way there and, more by good fortune than choice, they were referred to William James Wilson, a founder of the eye hospital, former President of the Manchester Medical Society and recently elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.
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They could not have fallen into better hands. Mr Wilson was associated with both the infirmary in Piccadilly and the eye hospital in St Mary's, but he also had a ‘large and highly respectable' practice in the town. As Patrick was not admitted to either hospital, he must have consulted Mr Wilson privately in his rooms at No. 72, Mosley Street. Not surprisingly, Mr Wilson refused to commit himself to surgery until he had examined Patrick's eyes for himself, and Charlotte promised to return in about three weeks' time with her father.
⁹⁸

Charlotte and Patrick arrived in Manchester on Wednesday, 19 August, and saw Mr Wilson immediately; he pronounced Patrick's eyes ‘quite ready' for the operation, fixed it for the following Monday and considerably cheered his patient by offering a very favourable prognosis. The first night was spent in a hotel, but the next day they moved into lodgings recommended by Mr Wilson at No. 83, Mount Pleasant, Boundary Street, off the Oxford Road, which were to be their home for at least the next month. The lodgings were kept by an old servant of his but she was away in the country recuperating from a serious illness and, to her consternation, Charlotte found herself in charge of all their boarding arrangements. Though she had helped around the parsonage, particularly with the ironing and bedmaking, she had always been content to leave all the catering to Emily. In a panic she wrote to Ellen for advice.

I find myself excessively ignorant – I can't tell what the deuce to order in the way of meat – &c

I wish you or your Sister Anne could give me some hints about how to manage – For ourselves I could contrive – papa's diet is so very simple – but there will be a nurse coming in a day or two – and I am afraid of not having things good enough for her – Papa requires nothing you know but plain beef & mutton, tea and bread and butter but a nurse will probably expect to live much better – give me some hints if you can –
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If Patrick was apprehensive, he did not show it. On the day of the operation Mr Wilson and the two surgeons who assisted him ‘seemed surprised' at his ‘extraordinary patience and firmness', Charlotte told Ellen.
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Just how extraordinary that patience and firmness were can only be appreciated when one knows that the whole operation, which lasted a quarter of an hour and involved the complete extraction of the left lens, was conducted without anaesthetic. The courageous old man, nearly seventy years of age, not only endured the physical pain without flinching or complaint, but even took such an interest in the proceedings that he later made notes in the margin of his copy of Graham's
Modern Domestic Medicine
.

Belladonna a virulent poison – was first applied, twice, in order to expand the pupil – this occasioned very acute pains for only about five seconds – The feeling, under the operation – which lasted fifteen minutes, was of a burning nature – but not intolerable – as I have read is generally the case, in surgical operations. My lens was extracted so that cataract can never return in that eye –
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‘Mr Wilson entirely disapproves of couching', Charlotte wrote sternly to Ellen, as if rebuking her for her surgeon cousin's advice to remove only the cataract.
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Mr Wilson had also explained that he would only perform the operation on one eye in case infection set in and completely destroyed the sight. The greatest care was taken to avoid this.

I was confined on my back – a month in a dark room, with bandages over my eyes for the greater part of the time – and had a careful nurse, to attend me both night, & day – I was bled with 8 leeches, at one time, & 6, on another, (these caused but little pain) in order to prevent, inflammation –

In a marginal note Patrick added, ‘Leeches must be put on the temples, and not on the eyelids.'
¹⁰³

While Patrick lay quietly in his darkened room waiting and praying for the restoration of his sight, Charlotte found herself with time on her hands. The nurse was efficient and, despite her previous fears about the housekeeping, there was little for Charlotte to do; she could not even cheer her father by talking to him, for initially Patrick was to speak and be spoken to as little as possible. She herself was suffering from a raging toothache which had
troubled her on and off for over a month; it flared up again as soon as she got to Manchester and added sleepless nights to her already long and wearisome days.
¹⁰⁴
Charlotte took refuge, as she had always done, in her imagination. She began to write
Jane Eyre
.